NHL: Was Dustin Brown made available to Pittsburgh this week?

Pens one of three teams Kings targeted in talks?

Since the Dustin Brown rumors surfaced on Thursday, talk on Friday morning coming out of the Penguins organization is that they like Brown but the team didn’t expect to be a serious suitor for Brown and didn’t feel they matched up with the Kings for a potential trade.

However, was Pittsburgh one of the two or three teams targeted by Kings GM Dean Lombardi in trade talks earlier this week, before word leaked out that Brown was available and Lombardi backed off?

According to CBC’s Elliotte Friedman who is very well connected, they might have been. Friedman appearing on Hockey Night in Canada, mentioned that Brown was made available to the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs and “might have been made available” to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

If the Kings actually targeted Pittsburgh in talks, an NHL source believes players of interest for the Kings at the NHL level likely included Paul Martin, Tyler Kennedy and Matt Niskanen.

Brown by the way is not being shopped but is believed to still be in play to the few amount of teams Lombardi has targeted in talks. One source says Lombardi prefers to move Brown to the Eastern Conference and those are the particular teams he will target.

TSN’s Bob McKenzie mentioned the following teams on Friday as having “high levels of interest” in Brown: New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia Flyers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Edmonton Oilers, Buffalo Sabres and Vancouver Canucks.

The Vancouver Canucks are believed to have heavy interest.

Brown, 27, is the captain of the Kings and has two years remaining on his deal with a cap hit of $3.175 million.

Brown by the way has responded well to the trade rumors, scoring a hat trick tonight against the Chicago Blackhawks.